What is a Chatbot? Why Your Marketing Strategy Needs Them

I don’t make very many predictions when it comes to the future of technology, but when I see technology advance I often see the incredible potential for marketers. The evolution of artificial intelligence combined with unlimited resources of bandwidth, processing power, memory and space are going to put chatbots front in center for marketers.

What is a Chatbot?

Chat bots are computer programs that mimic conversation with people using artificial intelligence. They can transform the way you interact with the internet from a series of self-initiated tasks to a quasi-conversation. Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian

Chatbots aren’t new, they’ve actually been around as long as chat has been around. What’s changed is their ability to actually hold a conversation with a human. In fact, the technology is so advanced that there’s a chance you may have already had a conversation with a chatbot and not even realized it.

Why Marketers Will Use Chatbots

There are two ways to interact via the web. Passive interaction leaves it up to the visitor to initiate contact with your brand. Proactive interaction initiates the contact with the visitor. When a brand initiates contact with the visitor; for example, asking the visitor if they need assistance, the majority of visitors will respond. If you’re able to engage and assist that visitor, you can accomplish multiple goals:

Visitor Engagement – Does your company have the resources to ask every visitor how you can help them? I don’t know of a company that does… but a chatbot can scale and respond to as many visitors as needed, when needed.

Site Feedback – Collecting critical data about your page from your visitor can help you improve your site. If everyone is landing on a product page but confused about pricing, your marketing team can enhance the page with pricing information to improve conversions.

Lead Qualification – A significant amount of visitors may not be qualified to work with you. They may not have budget. They may not have the timeline. They may not have other resources that are necessary. A chatbot can help determine which leads are qualified and drive them to your sales team or to the conversion.

Lead Nurturing – Collecting information about your prospect can help you personalize and engage with them throughout the customer journey or when they return to the site.

Guidance – A visitor has landed on a page but can’t find the resource they’re looking for. Your chatbot asks them, the prospect responds, and the chatbot presents them with a product page, a whitepaper, a blog post, a photo or even an video that can help push them through their journey.

Negotiation – Marketers already know how well remarketing and retargeting work once a visitor leaves your site. What if you could negotiate before they leave? Perhaps the pricing is a bit steep so you could offer a payment plan.

Imagine having an unlimited team of greeters to engage with your visitors and help guide them through to a purchase… wouldn’t that be a dream come true? Well, that’s what artificial intelligence and chatbots will be for your sales team.

Post navigation

One comment

Really into this article and infographic, but I sure hope we don’t think of chatbots as the obvious evolutionary step for all bots!

We’ve been wondering about bots and how they should be helpful for 6+ years. Our opinion ? Really revolutionary bots will be so much better than these chat bots – and we’ll probably stop referring to these kinds of chat bots as bots at all.

An analogy – these bots are like the Web 1.0. They do a job, but it doesn’t feel social – it feels like when automated voice systems replace real life customer support.

Along with users of our software, UBot Studio, which lets anyone build bots, we’ve been wondering what are bots really useful for, long term.

We put together an informational site that has a lot more bot-building information, including some slightly off-the-wall predictions. Check it out at http://www.botsoftware.org. It’s about bots in general, not just chat bots, but it should be useful for anyone who wants to learn more!

Search

Your Cart

Our Latest Podcasts

In this MarTech Interview, we speak to Christopher Day, Co-Founder and CEO of DemandJump. DemandJump’s Customer Acquisition Platform shows marketers exactly where to focus to drive revenue. Before DemandJump, marketers could only see the last touch point that led their audience to them. Now, marketers can reach their audience three steps before customers reach them…

Mark W. Schaefer is a globally-recognized educator, speaker, business consultant, and author. His well-known blog {grow} (https://www.businessesgrow.com/), is one of the most acclaimed marketing blogs of the world. Mark has worked in global sales, PR, and marketing positions for nearly 30 years and now provides consulting services as Executive Director of U.S.-based Schaefer Marketing Solutions.…

Your WordPress site is getting a ton of engagement from people all over the world... or is it? While WordPress sites are seeing a decline in engagement while the conversations moved to social media, what's left may be engagement that actually does harm to your site. Commonly referred to as comment spam and trackback spam,…

In this MarTech Interview, we speak to Mike Prasad. Mike has diverse experience as a technology entrepreneur, investor, and strategist with expertise in marketing, branding, UI/UX, product development, cross-market finance, and platform creation. Mike focuses on applying new technologies and initiatives, from macro-level strategy to hands-on execution. Mike developed the brand for Kogi BBQ (http://kogibbq.com),…

In this MarTech Interview, we speak to Melinda McLaughlin, Chief Marketing Officer at Extreme Reach. Melinda is a superstar in the industry - recently recognized by the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, with the gold for Female Executive of the Year. Melinda is responsible for spearheading all aspects of the company’s global marketing and…

In this MarTech Interview, we speak to Paul Mealy, author of Virtual & Augmented Reality For Dummies an easy-to-understand primer on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are driving the next technological revolution. If you want to get in on the action, Paul's book will help you understand what…

In this MarTech Interview, I interview Kerry Bianchi, the CEO of Visto. Kerry is the leader in the programmatic industry, a board member of IAB, a Top 50 Women in Brand Marketing, and 2017 Silver Stevie Award winner for “Female Executive of the Year, Business Services – Computer Services and Software. Kerry is the CEO…

Dana Hamerschlag is a Harvard Business grad and leader in the sales technology industry who leads product innovation at sales consulting firm Miller Heiman Group. Dana explains, despite the hype, most organizations aren’t doing much with AI, but rather analytics. Why that is? People haven’t invested in the right data sets to use AI engines…

An IP address is a way to connect businesses and marketers to their customers and prospects with a new approach to online advertising: IP Targeting. El Toro matches physical addresses to IP addresses with extreme precision using offline data and patented one-to-one marketing technology. Marty Meyer of El Toro drove up from Louisville and joined…

Brent Oakley operated a chain of successful premium car washes but struggled to find a means of marketing to his customers while they were in-store. He built an innovative music and messaging platform that provides real-time, highly-targeted messaging to each store and launched it as a Saas platform, Vibenomics. Vibenomics provides businesses access to a…